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UK Spam Law Goes Live
loonix_gangsta writes "So, the UK has taken matters into its own hands and, as of today, is making it a criminal offence to send e-mails or text messages unless the recipient has agreed in advance to accept them. The law comes into force today. Unfortunately much spam originates from the US so the UK had previously asked the US to co-operate."
Personally, I see a lot more spam from China or Korea than the US. Sure, we get a fair bit from worm infected machines these days, but China and Korea are still the heavy hitters. Perhaps it would be more positive to amend the article, "Unfortunately, the UK is responsible for a very small segment of spam in the wild, so this is law is not likely to make a major difference to Internet users." Having said that, there are lots of people *responsible* for spam in the US, but it's next to impossible to tie most common spam to these respective (can I even use that word in this context?) people. Andypoo.
2. Most spam is from US/Far east
3. Spam gets sent because really stupid ppl respond to it
The impact of spam will only be lessoned when people are educated to take care of the problem. I.e Not responding to spam and taking responsibilty for their internet connection rather than just calling for legislation.
The UK always has this "Something must be done" mentality without people ever thinking perhaps *they* could do something.
Talk about the law of unintended consequences....
So I guess the idea is that people within the same country should have a major hassle in sending messages, but that if you have an out of country mail server available you can spam all you want?
What we need here is a larger clue-stick, perhaps in the shape of a cricket bat?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Critics of the UK approach say the laws do not go far enough and that the maximum 5,000 fine is not high enough.
5,000 fine for what? Laws like the California anti-spam bill (which unfortunately will be nixed by the new federal bill before it even becomes law) allow for fines on a per-email basis. If this is the same, then I see no problem with 5,000 per email. It will add up in the end. But if it is 5,000 per campaign!? Much to little.
This law does allow for individuals to sue for themselves, but I didn't see anything mentioning if the marketers could be sued as well as the spammers. So it's got a leg up on the US law, although it could be better.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
However, this provides more interference with the operation of the Internet while offering very little in the way of actual benefit. Already some people have experienced problems with overzealous realtime blackhole lists, others (me) have problems with ISPs implementing incoming filters without letting anybody know, silently dropping legitimate mail along with the illegitimate. And legal solutions rarely are -- it's just a matter of time before a loophole is found in this one (besides the obvious: since the empire has waned in recent years only the U.K. really trembles at U.K. law). Additionally, this may impede legitimate unsolicited commercial e-mail as well as that of the "Free Vitamins 7538" variety.
At the end of the day, we've really yet to mount a good defense to spam. And I still don't think laws are the way to do it.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
A lot of spam does indeed 'come from' Korea, China, Brazil etc, but a vast majority of it is still being sent by US spammers, using open relays and proxies in the aforementioned locations. Same with bullet-proof hosting of spamvertized webpages.
"criminal offence to send e-mails or text messages unless the recipient has agreed in advance to accept them"
Examples of spam?
"I found your article at example.com very interesting, but I have some additional information you might be interested in..."
"Regarding the job posting in this Sunday's paper..."
"Excellent blog for today, I laughed my ass off"
Yes, and all the papers that have headlines saying "Smith Wins" after an election are plagiarizing as well.
There's nothing particularly original about that headline. Besides, the Register headline uses "anti-spam", not "spam", so it's not verbatim.
I'm from Australia actually :) And not particularly fond of the US for a variety of reasons, but for the sake of spam, I don't think they're entirely to blame.
.net, etc are likely to be US-mostly for example), rather than go after .au and .uk domains (do you have only .uk addresses? Or .com/.net?) Whilst you may think this would take an overwhelming about of thought/preparation on the spammer's side, imagine the greater exposure they'd get from this slight targetting..
Just because a spam contains a US-style phone number (which is generally not the content of the spam) or identifies as a US-based business, only means they're trying to seduce the biggest market (the US) for their advertising campaign.
I don't see sufficient evidence in spams these days to suggest that the US are behind the majority of spam.
However, will definitely be looking more at ROKSO from spamhaus.org, although traditionally, most of the "big name" spammers I've seen on these lists are spam campaigns I've never personally seen. (Which is surprising, because a lot of my addresses are very exposed.)
I guess it just boils down to differences in targetted audience based on domain. Whilst you might not think any consideration goes into which addresses are spammed (since you may aswell just 'spam them all'), up until recently, most spam has worked off e-mail lists, and it makes sense to try to deliver to your most powerful segments first (.com,
Having said all that, I'm still assuming the US as the most lucrative and easily led market for spam.
All in all, not really saying that the US *aren't* behind the majority of spam. I just lack suitable evidence that they *are*, in my opinion.
Phew,
Andypoo.
the courtroom will not have its time wasted on stupid bickering like you suggest. and besides, i'm sure they will include some kind of description of email/txt which falls under this law... otherwise ANY txt and email from a company at the moment is illegal.
Spam is no more free speech than your local bookie painting his ad on the side of your house or car is free speech. In fact, to come close, he would have to bill you for the paint.
Given the difficulty the US is having of not only enforcing but also legally maintaining the "Do-Not-Call" Phone Registry federal initiative, I have doubts that the US would ever be able to implement an effective anti-spam law
While spammers don't have the political clout of telemarketers, it is easier to enforce laws aimed at telemarketing than spam as the major customers of telemarketers tend to be large corporations (long distance phone companies) and phone calls are easier to trace back to source than e-mail.
It would probably depend on the terms of the agreement with the marketing companies. If the agreement was simply to 'promote the company' then the seller should be fine, as the contract would be subject to an implied term that it should 'promote the company legally'. If the agreement made express reference to the use of spam, then presumably the selling company would be liable.
Who would have thought we could just block BocaRaton. Also, looks like if I have a contest and tell people that register that they get additional entries for people that they refer - they are now breaking the law by spamming their friends.
comment directly in my journal
It should only be illegal to send the truly annoying spam that is offensive, trying to scam you, or sell you something that you shouldn't have, or that there is a very small chance that you would want
Dude, you just described 90% of UCE. I don't have a problem with legitimate commercial email (no forged headers, working removal link, ect). And I'm glad that governments are finally taking SPAM seriously. However, instead of the act itself, I think they need to focus on spammer's illegal activities like:
latest trend in spam to my inbox seems to be purposefully incorrectly spelling words - like the title of this post- v1agra for example is one i see quite frequently, Now there is NO other reason to do this i can think of other than to get passed everybodys mail filter rules which block anything with webcam or viagra or enlargement in the titles - but this seems silly to me, if someone has set up a rule like that, i think its safe to say that they NEVER will buy this type of product, so bypassing their mail rules is futile. they STILL won't buy it, they will just add a new rule. (when can i get regular expressions in my mail rules? anyone know of a client that supports this?)
... another thing i don't understand though - is why spam is seemingly unaccountable - there HAS to be a contact otherwise no-one can buy the product thats being spammed. surely its a small task to call the contact number or whatever and arrange for the arrest of whoever answers the phone?
bah,
and your right - as a uk citizen i am also aware that this new law will do NOTHING.
I wouldn't be surprised if the article left out that this only applies to commercial emails. If it doesn't then it should.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Since you have to pay for most of the things that spammers offer via a credit card, how about pressuring the credit card companies to be more vigilant about what vendors it allows to accept their cards? Since spamming is motivated by money, and most of that money is via CC, I bet we could make a siginificant dent in the flow of spam by taking away their ability to charge for their products.